David Bazan

The former leader of sensitive millennial indie rockers Pedro The Lion struck out on his own last year with his much-ballyhooed debut LP as a soloist. It represented, in addition to the obvious break with his old band, Bazan's dramatic skeptical spiritual U-turn, which of course proved problematic for the latent Christian tendencies that had been layered beneath his previous releases. Curse Your Branches tells the story of his struggle in song, so be advised that there may be some heavy commentary in the between-song banter here; this is a man who once said of Pascal's Wager – the idea that assuming there is a hell is safer for your eternal soul than questioning – "If this is what the Supreme Being of the Universe resorts to in order to get people to do his bidding, then I'm gonna f*cking stand up to him and tell him to f*ck off."